Providing Market Intelligence for 40 Years

In The News

Joining a crowded market, NBCUniversal launches $4-a-month online comedy service in January

NBCUniversal's latest effort to target millennials is coming: An online video service focused on comedy that costs $4 a month.

The service, Seeso, will have original content and NBC shows like "30 Rock" and "The Office," ''Saturday Night Live," standup and the "Monty Python" movies. It will be available for most people in January.

NBCUniversal and its owner, cable and Internet giant Comcast, have been trying different ways to get young people's attention as live TV viewing declines. If Seeso had been born 15 years ago, it would have launched as a cable channel, said Evan Shapiro, Executive Vice President of NBCUniversal Digital Enterprises. But online viewing today is "clearly part of the mainstream," and to reach comedy nerds, Comcast is launching Seeso as an online subscription service.

Comcast has also launched a YouTube-like video service, Watchable; is trying out an Internet-based basic cable TV alternative that doesn't require a cable box in some markets; and invested in new media outlets like BuzzFeed and Vox.

But Seeso will have to compete for attention in a crowded market.

"In the past year we keep seeing more and more services coming up, more niche services," said Glenn Hower, an analyst with market research firm Parks Associates.

From the article "Joining a crowded market, NBCUniversal launches $4-a-month online comedy service in January" by Tali Arbel.

Previously In The News

Apple's Next? Brains Of An iPhone 6S In A 5S Body

According to research firm Parks Associates, one-third of Apple iPhone owners still have a model that is more than two years old, compared with 30% of Samsung phone owners. And several consumers in...

Apple's Next? Brains Of An iPhone 6S In A 5S Body

Many consumers demanded bigger screens and the move paid off for Apple. The larger iPhone was Apple's best seller ever. But not all Apple consumers made the switch. According to research firm Pa...

Fewer People Are Canceling Services Like Netflix, Hulu, & Amazon

In the last 12 months about 19% of US broadband households or about one in 5 households have cancelled a OTT service like Netflix. At the end of 2015, 20% of U.S. broadband households had cancelled at...

More Bad News for Traditional Pay TV

Just when you thought things could not get worse for pay TV… This week Parks Associates published a new survey that showed the number of dissatisfied cable TV subscribers has doubled in just a few...